


Cédez

by rukafais



Series: an endless song [4]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 13:03:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16723938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rukafais/pseuds/rukafais
Summary: His music has always soothed the restlessness of a god’s fire, those occasions where the Nightmare King stirs and brings uncomfortable heat to the surface, the only time Grimm can ever truly be said to beillin any capacity. The Ritual seems closer than ever, in those hours.He plays, and worries, and the heaviness of what he’s never said sits in his chest and makes his heart a leaden weight.





	Cédez

“Do you enjoy being here, my friend?”

His voice is soft and low and achingly tired. The easy confidence and amusement that he usually displays in day to day interactions is gone at times like these; the fire that he was born to carry burning him up inside.

It’s not yet time for the Ritual - not for many, many years - but in these vulnerable moments, it always feels closer than ever. His breathing labors; he struggles to keep his eyes open.

The vessel for the flame, the Master of the Troupe, carrying the burden of a god’s fire. There have been many stories attempting to explain why Grimm is the way he is, why every incarnation offers a hand to those from dying lands to come along and share the journey; for power, for his own gain, for some terrible devil’s bargain.

Brumm has heard them all, and then some. He thinks that if they truly saw the weight of what his master had to carry, they wouldn’t tell such tales at all, because the answer is, in truth, simple.

The Nightmare Heart, the endless cycle of death and rebirth - the endless journey - is too heavy a burden to bear alone.

He never understands why Grimm is simply amused at what other bugs say. It is the only thing that Brumm really, truly becomes angry at; these rumors and whispers painting a picture of some sinister scarlet figure that bears only a passing resemblance to reality. He can tolerate being pitied, those who come to see the show thinking he has some debt to pay or made a reckless choice - but insults to his master are something else entirely.

But his master shrugs and smiles and often laughs at such tales, and tells him that bugs will think what they will; it is not his job, nor his right, to meddle with that. He is the god of nightmares, after all. He sees what their minds conjure, their deepest fears and darkest shadows; his scarlet eyes pierce the veil that bugs lay over their own subconscious, scared to look further.

_My sister brought bugs dreams of their ideal selves, and was loved. I am her opposite, her shadow._

_Who would not react to that with fear?_ he asks, and Brumm says nothing.

_“If they are scared of me, my friend, then that is how it is.”_

_“It shouldn’t be,” the musician replies, his voice tight. It’s a discussion they’ve never truly resolved; their answers, in the end, are always the same._

This, too, is a question that his master always seems to ask.

“Mrmm. Of course, master.”

Grimm has always been intent on choice, after all. If his musician ever wished it, he could simply wake from the Troupe’s dark dream; remove his mask and wipe all those years of traveling away. Free of memory and connection to the Troupe, and free to start again.

He does not wish it. Not now, not ever, he thinks.

He will not consider it. Not until--

“Should I play something? Mrmm. For you.”

Grimm simply nods - apparently speaking is too much of an effort, right now, and that in itself pains Brumm to see - and so he plays.

It is a slow, sad tune, from one of the first places they visited together. A lament for a dying land.

It calms that roiling fire inside his master well enough. 

* * *

Grimm listens quietly to his song, and the pain written clearly on his face lessens; he relaxes. But -

“You seem distressed, my friend,” he notes, after a moment.

“It’s nothing, master.”

The answer comes too quickly, because of course it’s something, but he can’t--

He can’t speak of it. Especially not now, when the fire burns low and the shadows creep close and the world is colder than it is at any other time. It’s too much.

_It will always be too much,_ his own voice retorts back at him, as it seems to do so often these days.

“Perhaps another time, then, if playing makes you so unhappy.”

Grimm is _worried._ His master is _worried for him,_ even when he is in pain, even when what he carries makes it hard for him to breathe -

He stops playing. The silence feels like a burden in itself, a sense of wrongness in the air, when it normally should not. It is normal for him not to say things, not to speak aloud.

This is different. He doesn’t know how. It is a weight that sits in his chest and slows his words and breathing and he doesn’t know why.

_Staying silent will not fix it._

“Are you well?”

“I--”

_I’m fine,_ he means to say, _it’s nothing,_ but the words don’t come, because it feels too much lying to say them, because he can say very little or nothing at all as an answer when his master isn’t asking him directly but only then -

In answer, he falters. The would-be sentence trails off. Grimm frowns, a little.

“I know you prefer not to speak, my friend, but just this once I would request it. What troubles you so deeply?”

He-

-turns away, and plays something else, some song pulled from distant memories. Something from the past, something to distract him from thoughts of the present and that strange nervousness in him.

The music of a long-ago, half-remembered spring, a celebration of life and growing things, fills the air. Grimm closes his eyes for a moment, tilts his head up, breathes slowly like he’s drinking it in. Listening intently.

(It’s not something that came from traveling with the Troupe. This is from Brumm’s memories alone, a piece of his past; a life long gone.)

Scouring the land clean, collecting the last remnants of its nightmare, ensures it will grow again - is capable of making something new from the ashes of the old. But the Troupe, and their wandering master, will not be there to witness and to tend that growth. That is for others to do.

He keeps playing, and mercifully, his master seems to have dropped the subject entirely - or, at least, he doesn’t say anything about their previous conversation. He simply listens, with that lazy smile that captures Brumm’s heart and attention so easily.

The musician glances at him once, and his master’s smile is rueful and amused and his eyes are keen and fixed on him, and he doesn’t know how to take that at all, so he just-- tries not to think about it.

When he finishes playing, Grimm has slipped into apparent slumber, and so Brumm quietly takes his leave.

* * *

When Grimm is certain his musician has left, he opens his eyes again and shakes his head and wonders if Brumm realised how much he had truly said by not wanting to say anything in words. His music has always come from the heart, after all.

It is a song for spring, about things that grow and flourish. He remembers it, he thinks, or one of his incarnations does. An old song, passed down through the ages, having blossomed with a hundred variations in the process of its spread. Sometimes the lyrics survive; sometimes they do not.

It is a song about love, and flowers blooming, and suddenly several things, including his dear musician’s sudden attack of speechlessness, make much more sense.

It is almost, _almost_ , a confession.

But not quite.

Still - it’s the start of something, perhaps.

(At the thought, his heart skips a beat in a way that has nothing at all to do with a restless god, and he almost thinks he can hear that old, old voice laughing at him in the back of his mind.)

**Author's Note:**

> SO CLOSE AND YET SO FAR


End file.
